Today started with a lot of rain. We all enjoyed a slower start to the day, with the kids catching up on their travel diaries from yesterday’s adventures. We had a few ideas of things to do today, but only the Antarctic Journey out at the Nobbies Centre was locked in for later this afternoon.
In the end, we decided to head across to the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory for the morning – the kids had spotted it on our way in and been asking about it, and we did have it on our “maybe” list. It’s a self-guided tour of the journey and process of making chocolate, interspersed with a bunch of games and chances to win chocolate prizes. Even the tickets for the tour are blocks of chocolate! We all had a great morning… and the chocolate they make was pretty tasty as well.
We headed back into Cowes, and realised that there were markets on today. It had stopped raining by now, but we didn’t hold out much hope. Sure enough, there were only about two market stalls who had set up, and both were about to pack up as we got there at midday! We had a quick look through some of the Cowes shops, but then headed back home for lunch.
As the afternoon rolled around, we headed back out to the western side of the Island again to go to the Antarctic Journey section of the Nobbies Centre. It was a really interesting learning experience about animals and the environment on Phillip Island, Macquarie Island, Heard Island & McDonald Islands, and Antarctica. The information was all in relatively short chunks, so the kids stayed pretty interested.
On the trip back home, we took an alternate road (properly signposted, I promise!) from the Nobbies back toward the Penguin Parade Visitors’ Centre – it was a gravel track that wound its way along the edge of the headland. In all honesty, it felt like we were driving through someone’s private land, and the Cape Barren geese and Swamp Wallabies were just there at the side of the road. It was incredible! At one point we had to stop for a Cape Barren goose who was standing in the middle of the road and wasn’t really in any mood to move – quite rightly so, really.
We also stopped at a couple of amazing lookouts for one last look along the beautiful coast of Phillip Island – but my goodness, it was windy.
We did another stop back at the Penguin Parade Visitors’ Centre for the kids to pick up the toys they wanted to buy – we’d aimed to get there early enough after they opened, but before the crowds arrived, and it worked well. The kids were all still very excited about getting a little toy penguin each – the first thing they spent their holiday money on.
Pizza for dinner tonight for the last night on Phillip Island – tomorrow we head toward the Great Ocean Road!
